I became acquainted with Count Tousky Wousky in Paris somewhere in the year 1836. For some reason or other, which I did not at first understand, he devoted himself chiefly to the society of strangers, and, of all strangers, most affected the company of Americans. At that time there were several fair daughters of the Pilgrims in the gay metropolis, a few Knickerbockers, and at least one descendant of the Huguenot race in the person of Miss P . . . . . of Charleston. In this circle Tousky Wousky aspired to figure. He was a tall, handsome fellow, who had seen perhaps eight and twenty summers, with fine long and dark locks, to say nothing of the most unexceptionable whiskers and imperial. He smiled enchantingly, and the glimpses of his ivory-white teeth between their cushions of well-dyed bristles were quite “killing.” Altogether he was a most personable individual—waltzed charmingly—attitudinized beyond any dancer at the opera-house—and, though he said nothing except in a sort of mute challenge to man and woman to “look and admire,” he carried away more captive hearts than any man of his day.
In French society the count was very generally eschewed. Having no apparent means of livelihood, and being well understood to carry as little in his pocket if possible as in his head, the young men about town were somewhat shy of him, and he was considered not much better than a professed gambler. This would of course never have been known, had it not been that his familiarity was such with the few Americans of wealth who visited Paris during the winter of 1836, that he had made fourteen distinct matrimonial proposals. So susceptible was he, that he fell desperately in love with no less than fourteen of the sex in the same season—compassed fourteen courtships by his languishing and silent adoration—was fourteen times on his knees to fourteen fair creatures varying in age from fourteen to forty—fourteen times was referred to Monsieur, mon père, or to Monsieur, mon frère—had his character submitted to fourteen inquisitions, and was fourteen times politely informed that “his addresses must be discontinued.”
I left Paris, and thought nothing more of Count Tousky Wousky till I was walking some months afterward in Broadway. My friend Lieutenant P . . . . of the army, whom Commodore Elliot will probably recollect, if he recollects having been in the Mediterranean, was my guide-book and index on the occasion, for having been absent some years, the faces of my townsmen and townswomen were quite strange to me.
“P . . . .,” said I; “indicate the individual we have just passed. I have seen him a thousand times, but for the life of me I cannot recollect where or when.”
“That!” exclaimed P . . . .; “I should know from your question, that you were just off the salt water. But how very odd! That man is Count Tousky Wousky. How the deuce did it happen that you, who were so long in Paris, did not know Tousky Wousky?”
“Tousky Wousky!” I rejoined. “That’s his name sure enough—but what is Tousky Wousky doing here?”
“That’s neither your business nor mine. He is the handsomest man on the pavé, and has the entire run of the city, from the eight shilling balls at Tammany to the most brilliant routes in Bond street or Waverley Place.”
“Quite a range, P . . . . But does he patronize Tammany?”
“To be sure he does; and why not? It’s all one to him; and he has got the idea that there is good picking in the Bowery. He has heard of butchers’ families, where good ribs were to be had, and is not sure that he might not get pretty well suited at some wealthy tailor’s. In short, he is in search of a rich wife, and he is not over particular who or what she may be as long as she can plank the pewter.”
“That is to say, P . . . ., he is a penniless adventurer, who cannot find a wife in his own country, and proposes to confer the honor on us. Is that the arrangement?”